and if they could tell me how it compares with the Al-Qadim version in Secrets of the Lamp.
I've looked over an older Kuntz part-1 adventure entitled The City of Brass that involved the party trekking through the mountains on the Elemental Plane of Fire and ended when they finally reached the city, but I was not very impressed with it.
There are three full blown treatments of the City of Brass:
Al-Qadim/Secrets of the Lamp - $18 (Out of Print but readily available)
Hackmaster/Sir Robilar's City of Brass - $25 Softcover
Necromancer Games/City of Brass - $75 Box
All three have direct Greyhawk references, tying each to the setting, via Tzunk, Sir Robilar etc. I'm not altogether sure how the Hackmaster and Necromancer products did this legally but it doesn't really matter. What matters, if it matters to you that is, is that each invokes Greyhawk canon and each is thus at least quasi-"official" to the setting.
Of course, each is completely different! So, while each invokes Greyhawk canon, each ends up in a very different place. Canon links are then no guarantee of consistency.
Of the three products, IMO, Secrets of the Lamp is the best. Its take on the City is the most generic or put another way, least idyosyncratic, so it fits no matter how you want to use it. It also has the best map, full color poster, by far.
Sir Robilar's City of Brass is second best, IMO. Its version of the CoB is more like the Fortress of Brass rather than a true city (See Secrets of the Lamp for what a true CITY should look like). As such it can be added to the Secrets of the Lamp easily. Sir Robilar's City of Brass is also the most notably keyed toward adventures; of the three, one could most easily "run" Sir Robilar's version, straight out of the box/shrinkwrap. In this way, Sir Robilar's City of Brass is very "old school."
Necromancer's City of Brass is most fully its own thing. Its city is smallish, between Secrets and Sir Robilar's as mapped. It is also an oddly designed "city," sort of layer cake-ish. Necromancer's CoB comes with a HUGE campaign made up of numerous adventures. This is a good thing if you want a huge linked campaign that just happens to be set in the CoB, but less good if you want more one off adventures or a planar setting or if the party will be using the CoB as a jumping off point for planar adventures. Fitting Necromancers CoB with Secrets of the Lamp and Sir Robilar's City of Brass is doable but there is no one most obvious way to do it (I've toyed with making it a sub sector of the city, a dijon-like super keep, something like a gatehouse/fauburg or an entrepot but haven't ever finally decided).
If you like "old school" cities as adventure settings where PCs can wander around and get into various trouble - think City State of the Invincible Overload & Wraith Overload - Sir Robilar's City of Brass is in that mold. It is built to generate adventures/encounters but, unlike Necromancer's CoB, these adventures are more hooks or seeds than fully fleshed out scenarios.
Then there is the Rob Kuntz factor. Like many DM's Rob's designs have a particular flavor. You either like it or you don't or are somewhere in between. I find Kuntz a bit "loose" even "slap-happy" in some of his designs, moreso than is ideal for me, but it doesn't take much for me to firm him up to my taste. Sir Robilar's City of Brass is not up to Kuntz' high standard of Castle Maure; THAT is Kuntz at his very best. Kuntz' CoB is altogether a lesser work than Castle Maure but still not bad, even so.
Secrets of the Lamp - 7.0
Sir Robilar's City of Brass - 5.5
Necromancer's City of Brass - 5.0 (8.0 standing on its own without comparison to any other CoB)
Thanks so much, GVDammerung! That helps immensely. :-)
I agree with you in virtually every one of your subjective takes on the material with which I am familiar, so your mini-reviews are perfect.
I love the map and full-city feel of the Secrets of the Lamp version, but I was thinking that there might be some more adventure-oriented version out there that I could plug in. Necromancer's version is a bit pricey for me to mine for just a few nuggets, since I am pretty much just looking at a one- or two-shot adventure in the City. I suspected that Kuntz's version might be a little too "fast and loose" for me, which it sounds like it is. It sounds like it would take a lots of tweaking to keep things consistent and gritty enough for me, and that there are more adventure hooks than actual detail.
Manual of the Planes-2nd edition mentions the City of Brass. Within the Plane of Fire 'home of the evil efreeti' said to be a great citadel, surrounded by magma. Forty miles across with the sultans citadel in the centre. Vast amounts of treasure in the citadel which is filled with Efreet who view others as enemies or slaves.
Manual of the Planes-4th edition has 4 pages dedicated to the City of Brass. In one of the most firey portions of the Elemental sea, ancient city, home to the Efreets, 500,000 population, many of those are slaves. Many portals to other locations, lava canals and wonderous architecture. Seems to be laws of Efreets and laws for everyone else. Has a one page map with major streets, gates and suburbs. Mentions demons in the city aswell.
There was no 2nd edition Manual of the Planes. You probably mean the 1st edition one. The Secrets of the Lamp version was a huge expansion of the basic 1e MotP description.
The 4th edition Manual of the Planes' account of the City of Brass is directly based on the Secrets of the Lamp version, and for the most part is identical except that in Secrets of the Lamp, the City of Brass is built on a huge hovering brass hemisphere floating (curved side down) above the plane (this is also the description in the 1st edition Manual of the Planes), while in 4th edition, the hovering brass hemisphere isn't mentioned. The map is identical, though.
Other places the City of Brass has been described are the Planescape accessory The Inner Planes and the 3rd edition Planar Handbook. Both of those are essentially the same as the Secrets of the Lamp version, however. In the Planar Handbook, the fearsome prison known as the Octogon was converted into a festhall, but in the 4th edition Manual of the Planes it's a prison again with no time as a festhall mentioned. Probably for the best.
For most intents and purposes, Secrets of the Lamp, Necromancer Games' City of Brass, and Sir Robilar's City of Brass constitute the main variations of the city. There was a City of Brass in the Emirates of Ylaruam Gazeteer for OD&D, but that city had nothing to do with genies.
The entry I wrote for the City of Brass in the wiki is based on the Secrets of the Lamp version, although I note the change in population figures in the Planar Handbook. The Planar Handbook made both Sigil and the City of Brass smaller, population-wise, than they'd been in 2nd edition, and the 4th edition Manual of the Planes followed suit. I don't know why.
FWIW: RJK's full version of the City of Brass, which clocks in at ~86+K words, will be published by PPP at some point (the published version from Kenzer only includes about 1/2 of the text he wrote). _________________ Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html
FWIW: RJK's full version of the City of Brass, which clocks in at ~86+K words, will be published by PPP at some point (the published version from Kenzer only includes about 1/2 of the text he wrote).
I'd buy it on sight. So get to publishing already! _________________ GVD
There's also an earlier version of (TO THE) CITY OF BRASS, an RPGA AD&D Team Tournament Adventure. (For Characters Levels 7-10, By Robert J. Kuntz) available on the internet in different incarnations.
There's also an earlier version of (TO THE) CITY OF BRASS, an RPGA AD&D Team Tournament Adventure. (For Characters Levels 7-10, By Robert J. Kuntz) available on the internet in different incarnations.
RJK's version was actually pretty detailed, Iron Golem: it's probably worth asking what he's planning to publish at some point (in addition to when). _________________ Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html
Fitting Necromancers CoB with Secrets of the Lamp and Sir Robilar's City of Brass is doable but there is no one most obvious way to do it (I've toyed with making it a sub sector of the city, a dijon-like super keep, something like a gatehouse/fauburg or an entrepot but haven't ever finally decided).
I think it's better to scatter the locations from Necromancer's City of Brass around the superior Secrets of the Lamp map, to encourage characters to wander around a little. If everything in the Necromancer Games campaign is all in one district, there's little reason to explore. I'd ignore the Necromancer Games city map entirely.
The biggest problem I've seen so far with adapting Necromancer Games' City of Brass to Greyhawk is the god Anuman, who is presented as a mostly benevolent, lawful creator god akin to Allah (though the multiverse he exists in isn't a monotheistic one by any means). He seems a very good addition for those wanting to use the city in a campaign centered around Earth, since "Allah" can be easily substituted wherever Anuman is mentioned. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with such a blatant Allah stand-in in Greyhawk, though he's fairly crucial to the plot. In Greyhawk, Istus might be substituted, but she's a very imperfect fit. The best solution might be a general appeal to the gods or "the enlightened gods." Just to ruin Anuman for everyone further, imagine the first A in his name stands for "Alfred E."
While it's very much a D&D city, one touch that I really liked with the Necromancer Games City of Brass is that it's built to be usable with any fantastic genre. Flash Gordon and Indiana Jones make small cameos in the boxed set (as "Flash" and "Jones"), sparking ideas for very different campaigns that might venture into the City of Brass.
I'd make Sir Robilar's City of Brass a completely different efreeti settlement. There are other efreeti fortresses and settlements throughout the Plane of Fire, after all, and none of them have been detailed. The different noble houses and half-fire giant ruler are distinct enough that I think they deserve to not be blended together with the primary City of Brass. Planes of Chaos mentions an efreeti fortress known as the Suhkteh Albarrana, which has a portal to Muspelheim in it; that might reasonably be Sir Robilar's city. Surtr could secretly support the fortress and its half-giant ruler. Of course, although he isn't the true Great Sultan of the Efreet, that ruler might claim to have a higher rank than he actually has.
The Paizo version of the City of Brass seems very compatible with both the Necromancer Games version and the Al-Qadim version of the city, with a number of interesting ideas for locations that might be scattered about the map.
The Paizo version of the City of Brass seems very compatible with both the Necromancer Games version and the Al-Qadim version of the city, with a number of interesting ideas for locations that might be scattered about the map.
What is the title of this product? I have missed it. _________________ GVD
The Paizo version of the City of Brass seems very compatible with both the Necromancer Games version and the Al-Qadim version of the city, with a number of interesting ideas for locations that might be scattered about the map.
What is the title of this product? I have missed it.
The Necromancer Games City of Brass is my favorite of the three. I know the author, and I know the amount of effort he put into putting it all together.
It is really hard to find, unfortunately. My FLGS still has a shrink-wrapped copy of it on their shelf, and I have never taken the time to tell him how its value has increased on ebay and the like.
To be frank the NG CoB box hasn't increased in value imho. Sure there are several listed on amazon for fantastic prices , but that's par for amazon marketplace. I wouldn't pay more than cover price for the NG CoB. Now the NG Wilderlands of High Fantasy box, that is another matter...
See also this thread and this thread on the acaeum for a discussion of which d20 products are collectibles and valuable.
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